Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-05-21
THE BLUE sun.
Prof. Langley Talks About the Color OF
the Great Luninary.

THE BLUE sun.
Prof. Langley Talks About the Color of
the Great Luminary.
The people of this world have never
seen the sun as it really is in their lives.
This was a statement which Prof. S. p.
Langley made at the outset of his lecture
at National Museum last evening on "Sun-
light and the Earths Atmosphere" Not
withstanding the horse races, the circus
and the oppressive heat, there were enough
people interested in Prof Langley and the
sun to make a fair audience in the lecture
room. Prof. Langley, who spoke fluentlv,
illustrated his meaning as he went along
with comparisons that the most unscien-
tliic OF his hearers could comprehend. At
the rear of the platform a large screen was
suspended, and stereopticon views and
diagrams were thrown upon this. Prof
Langley referred to Piato's remarks about
the wonder OF man who had spent his
| life in a cave upon beholding the sun for
the first time. The earth's atmosphere
the speaker hkened to the roof of cave.
1t is a reddish veil that holds back the
blue light of the SUM-
The Albatross III its deep-sea dredging
has brought up fishes with enormous eyes,
that tell of the faintness of the light that
filters down to their depths. Such fish
might regard the dim, greenish light of its
heaven as the full splendor of the sun.
with as much reason as we could regard the
sun we see as the sun as it really is. We
ourselves are living at the bottom of
great aerial ocean, whose pillows roll hun
dreds of miles over our heads. The white
light We see is only the dregs of the sun
light that has filtered down to our depths.
The lecturer explained at some length the
| meaning Of selective absorption of the at
mosphere, showing how some of the rays
or colors of the spectrum are held back bv
the atmosphere. The sun, too, like the
| earth, has its atmosphere, which alters its
| color. The presence of the solar atmos-
phere could be detected in observations of
the sun by the darkening towards the
edges. The center of the sun appeared of
light blue tint, and toward the edges
was red, approaching garnet. The sun, he
said, was evidently a colored star. The
| Professor showed on the screen a view of
the suns corona, remarking that the light
| received from the sun had to come through
this corona also, as well as the suns at
! mosphere. He showed, also, the wonder
| full intricacy and beauty of the sun-spots,
with their plumes curling like cirrus
clouds, in the great winds that swept over
| the surface of the sun. One of these
plumes, two or three times the size of the
continent of North America, lasted about
! fifteen minutes, and then changed its form.
| The atmosphere of the sun appeared the
color of glowing red hydrogen beauti-
full rose color-and through this they saw
| the sun.
The question was what was behind that
| With diagrams, Professor Langley ex-
planned simply how observations had been
taken Of the sun when in the zenith and
when declining in the afternoon. So that
in some cases the line of vision slanted
through the atmosphere, and in others
went through in the most direct way. The
! observations that had been taken con-
! stantly for two years, and the delicate tests
and measurements, made il certain that
| the sun behind its atmosphere was blue
| that is, the colors of the blue and of the
| spectrum were predominant. The color
/ of the sun, he said, was very near that
| which the ladies knew as lavender. When
| the light of the sun came slanting through
the atmosphere, the light was diminished
and the blue was cut out. The less air
that interviewed the more blue the sun
looked The effect Of the atmospheric
veil was to give the sun an orange tint
| The higher the sun WAS in the sky the
| bluer it looked. Professor Langley ex-
| planned briefly the methods followed in
researches made at Allegheny City, ex-
! planning the principles of the bolometer,
| or ray-measurer, kind of thermometer
so delicate that it can measure one one
| hundred thousandeth of degree, and in
| dictate one-miIlionth. 1t depended on the
| fact that the electric current will run
| faster through a medium when the me-
dunn is warm than when it is not warm.
Returning to the big-eyed fish at the
| bottom of the sea the lecturer spoke of its
! getting a more correct view of the sun by
| rising TO the surface. 1t was possible for
| observers here to rise toward the surface of
the aerial ocean by going up in balloon
or climbing to the top of q high mountain.
! 1t was for the purpose of getting near the
surface that the expedition to the top of
Mount Whitney, California, was made
| There observations were made nearly To-
| 600 feet above the level of the sea.
Roughly speaking, this took them half
way to the surface Of the aerial ocean,
! Though the atmosphere was several hun
dreds of miles in hight, the denser portion
was near the earth, so that in going three
miles up in the air one passed through
one-half. At that hight the blue end of
the spectrum grew enormously.
1t had been determined, he said, that
only five per cent. of the blue of the sun
was transmitted to US through the suns
atmosphere and the earth's atmosphere
In other words, the blue of the sun was
twenty times greater than it appeared to
US, while the red was only two times
greater. One of the results of this Mount
Whitney expedition had been to show
that the heat of the sun beating upon the
earth would, annually, melt shell of ice
! around the earth sixty yards in thickness,
instead Of forty yards, as has been taught
Many points of value were gained to geol-
the glacial age, and facts were determined
regarding the radiation of heat from the
earth. All, he said, depended upon this
curious quasi-intelligent action of selectiye
absorption. These researches were not
a matter of idle curiosity, but something
of great value, even when regarded from
the narrowest unitarian point of view
To this selectiye absorption, this action
going on in the atmosphere, We owed our
existence, and all organic life depends
| upon it, Washington Star.
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